Good Morning, RVA: It’s Wednesday!

Of all the planets, I think earth has the best weather—especially today.

July 15, 2015; 7:01 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: regan76
Good morning, RVA! It’s 72 °F, and today’s looking pretty moderate. We’ve got highs in the upper-80s, some sunshine early on, and–as always–a chance for some isolated storms this afternoon.

Water cooler

Brandon Shulleeta at the RTD breaks down the stats from the RPD’s mid-year status update. The news is mostly good: homicides, violent crime, and major crimes in general are all down. Meanwhile, WRIC is reporting a fatal shooting on the City’s south side. The police have yet to declare it a murder, but if they do it would be the 18th of 2015–which is still five fewer than this time last year.

It’s Amazon Prime Day, and if online sales motivate you…prepare to be motivated? I’m not sure how I feel about this self-declared “holiday,” but at least we’re all on the same page here: just like Black Friday, today is a day designed for consumption. Now that I think about it, if we could remove the consumer aspects from our real holidays and isolate them on their own, kinda gross islands, I think we’d be better off!

Gluten is a thing that many people think many thoughts about. Regardless of what those thoughts are, everyone can get behind thinking fried food is awesome. Bird Cox at Richmond Magazine has her top five picks for gluten-free fried food around town, and they all sound deliciously weight-gaining. Related in a “pairs perfectly with gluten-free fried foods” way, Hayley DeRoche talked to the fine folks at Triple Crossing about their new gluten-removed beer. Gluten! We have forsaken you!

The New Horizons probe has rocketed past Pluto, collected data, snapped pics, and will now head further into the Kuiper Belt. Expect some rad results over the next couple months as they’re beamed back over the entire breadth of our solar system. SCIENCE IS SO COOL.

Vox has the Iran Nuclear Deal for Dummies piece that I was looking for this morning.

Sports!

The second sportless day in a row! Don’t worry you guys, the Squirrels return tomorrow!

What to expect

• If you had five members in your family, we’d have one thing to do for each of them (aka 5 Things for Families)
• Our look into local booze continues with an update on the State of the Crowler
• An upcoming VCU speaker series will blow. your. mind.

This morning’s longread

Jefferson Davis on Fire

The accompanying illustration made me chuckle.

Just before his arrest in May of 1865, Davis made a decision that would haunt him. As a Union general reported, he “hastily put on one of his wife’s dresses” while attempting to escape.

In fact, he was apprehended wearing not a dress but his wife’s raincoat and shawl, which, his defenders argued, were nearly unisex in the style of the day. To the Northern press, however, the story was too good to check. Newspapers and magazines rushed to publish sketches of Davis as a bearded Southern belle.

“No one will attempt to make a hero of such material,” one account said. “He will appear in petticoats in history.”

This morning’s Instagram

— ∮∮∮ —

Email

Want to automagically get Good Morning, RVA in your inbox every morning? Sign up below!

July 15, 2015 7:01 AM 0